The Entire World is my Homeland: Erasmus’s Universalism Reexamined

Erasmus condemned nationalism, but did he promote universalism? In two essays examining Erasmus’s attitudes toward Jews and Judaism, Hildegard Cancik-Lindemaier and Christine Christ-von Wedel rationalize a universalist understanding of Erasmus based on their interpretation of Erasmus as not antisemitic. My paper challenges these two essays, and more broadly the volume in which Cancik-Lindemaier’s piece appears: Ralf Schöppner (ed.), Erasmus von Rotterdam—Humanist, nicht Nationalist (2020), a scholarly effort to associate Erasmus with universalism in order to oppose his appropriation by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) through its affiliated foundation Desiderius Erasmus Stiftung. Schöppner’s volume aims to bolster the narrative of Erasmus as a pillar of Western humanistic values against AfD’s xenophobic and anti-immigration policies. However, such efforts are viable only if they are supported consistently by the sources. I argue that Erasmus’s perspective was universal only if universalism is defined solely in terms of Christians, excluding Muslims and Jews. In so doing, I build on Heinz Schilling’s observation that Erasmus is a brilliant, independent thinker who is completely unsuited to represent any political party as a standard-bearer. Indeed, as Schöppner says, Erasmus’s ideas resist ideological appropriation by any political faction; rather, they caution against such particularistic appropriation. However, I emphasize that Erasmus’s antisemitism should not be disregarded, and that it undermines the universalism ascribed to him by Schöppner, Cancik-Lindemaier, Christ-von Wedel, and others.